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Good governance

At Tetra Pak, we equate good governance with good business: we do well by doing good. We believe that good corporate governance is the bedrock of a sustainable and commercially successful business; it is the basis of our brand promise: PROTECTS WHAT'S GOOD™, and is at the heart of all our stakeholder relationships.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Our governance framework

By providing the foundation for our strategy and approach to leadership, good governance ultimately helps us fulfil our vision to make food safe and available, everywhere. Our governance framework helps us deliver on our brand promise and comply with relevant regulations and legislation, as well as guiding us to behave ethically and responsibly. A Global Leadership Team is responsible for implementing the framework, supported by a Corporate Governance Office and a network of local governance and risk officers.

Our charter of responsibility outlines the roles and responsibilities of the Tetra Laval Board​ and Tetra Pak. The framework also includes a comprehensive risk management methodology and system with related and mitigating policies, procedures and global processes for managing and responding to risks. To secure an effective and transparent internal control environment we have implemented a new Governance Risk Compliance (GRC) system. This creates a single platform for risk management, bringing mitigating policies, procedures and detailed controls together with assurance processes, assessments and reports.

In 2018, we started a major review and update of all our policies and procedures guidelines. We will complete this in 2019. Our new online register clearly outlines the roles and responsibilities of the Tetra Laval Group Board and Tetra Pak, and we reached near full completion on our mandatory corporate governance training.

We reached a satisfactory completion on our mandatory corporate governance training programme for all employees. We also continuously updated our risk management methodology and system, creating a single online platform that significantly increases risk visibility and improves how and when we respond to and mitigate risks.​​

While core values shape our corporate culture and guide our behaviour internally and externally, our Code of Business Conduct sets out the company’s position on working conditions, discrimination, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, financial reporting, compliance, corruption, bribery, child exploitation and environmental issues. We have established a Sustainability Forum to further support our strategic and cross-functional approach to sustainability. Reporting to the Strategy Council, its members are Vice-President and Director-level representatives from across the company.

Trust and transparency

To build trust and transparency with our customers and as part of our approach to responsible sourcing with suppliers, we are members of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex), a not-for-profit membership organisation dedicated to driving responsible and ethical business practices in the supply chain.

We are also part of EcoVadis sustainability ratings and scorecards to help our procurement teams monitor environmental, social and governance issues in the supply chain. We were granted a Gold recognition in the EcoVadis supplier assessment for our environmental and social performance, placing us in the top 3 percent of all companies evaluated. In 2018, we expanded our work with EcoVadis to help our procurement teams better monitor environmental, social and governance issues in the supply chain.​

We disclose our work on managing climate impact in the Climate Diclsosure Project (CDP) Supplier Climate programme and have been been A' listed on the CDP's Forest programme for the third year in a row, and achieved leadership score for both the Climate Disclosure (A- score) and for the Supplier Engagement rating (A Score).​

Global principles

As signatories to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) we are committed to the implementation, disclosure and promotion of its 10 principles on human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. We submit an annual Communication on Progress and also actively contribute to the UN and best practice standards of the Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.

Corruption: zero tolerance

Anti-corruption is an important part of our corporate governance and we take a zero-tolerance approach to corruption, bribery and fraud. Corruption is unethical; it undermines the fairness of the market, distorts transaction costs, destroys an open, honest and decent society and harms economic, social and political progress. Combating corruption is an important part of building trust with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders and fostering a responsible, transparent business culture.

Awareness, understanding and compliance

All employees, at all levels of the company, are responsible for complying with the governance framework in their everyday decisions and actions. Details of the framework are available on our intranet and a mandatory eLearning programme is in place.

Whistle-blo​​wing

Anyone in the company can anonymously report actual or suspected breaches of our Code of Business Conduct or any other unethical behaviour directly to either the Corporate Governance Officer or Head of Audit, without being penalised in any way. Every case of a breach of our Code of Conduct is handled individually and investigated appropriately, depending on its severity. If the incident is criminal, we report it to the relevant authority.

A Gold Rating from Ecovdis

In 2018, Tetra Pak received our first Gold rating from the sustainability ratings platform EcoVadis​. EcoVadis evaluates companies' corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance across 21 criteria around the four themes of environment, fair labour practices, ethics/ fair business practices and supply chain. As part of our customers' supply chain, we provide data on our CSR performance to a number of our customers. Our Gold rating means that we're in the top 3 percent of all suppliers evaluated.